Understanding DVD Compression? 114
canyon289 asks: "My friends and I created a full length movie using a regular Sony Camcorder. After importing and editing all of the video and audio in Adobe Premiere, the exported AVI comes out to 19 gigs. The length of the movie is 90 minutes. We tried compressing it with Nero Burning Rom to a 4.7 single layer DVD but when played in a standard DVD player theres pixelation and frame skips aplenty. Does anyone know how to fit the movie into a DVD (preferably 4.7) and still maintain adequate quality?"
No problem! (Score:5, Funny)
Just download your movie off the net. Someone will have shrunk it to fit on a CD-ROM.
</sarcasm>
Burn it slower (Score:1, Informative)
Don't use nero (Score:3, Informative)
Feel free to adapt (Score:5, Informative)
mkdir dvd
dvdauthor -o dvd -t -v 4:3 01.mpg
dvdauthor -o dvd -T
growisofs -Z
rm -r dvd 01.mpg
Re:Try This instead same tools with a GUI (Score:2)
Re:Feel free to adapt (Score:5, Informative)
I'd recommend, as a minimum:
ffmpeg -i INPUT.avi -async 1 -hq -b 5000 -ab 224 -target ntsc-dvd -y output.vob
Play with the numbers 5000 and 224 until you have an output file that'll fit on your 4.7gb disc. The formula is (number_of_seconds * total_of_bitrates) / 8 / 1024 / 1024 = megabytes of output. You'll need it to be less than about 4400. Aim for 4200 if you don't want to have to reencode if it runs too high, because ffmpeg is a variable-rate encoder that just aims for the target you specify and often seems to overestimate how much data it can put in.
DVDAuthor's a great way of mastering the DVDs and learning to produce menus with it can be fun. Both of these programs work fine on Windows.
Re:Feel free to adapt (Score:3, Informative)
My method is similar, but looks like this:
lav2yuv INPUT.avi | yuvdeinterlace | mpeg2enc -f 8 -o VIDEO.mpg
ffmpeg -i INPUT.avi -ab 384 -o AUDIO.ac3
mplex -f8 VIDEO.mpg AUDIO.ac3 -o OUTPUT.vob
dvdauthor -o dvd -t -v 4:3 01.mpg
dvdauthor -o dvd -T
This will produce a set of directories like you normally find on a DVD. Now, you need to branch on whether or not the dvd directory is over4.7GB.
If not:
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video dvd
...will burn the DVD.
If it is, then you can use DVDShrink under WI
Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:2)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, DVDShrink doesn't drop frames. It modifies the coefficient data in the stream to reduce the overall file size. It leaves the motion vector information (which is really the hardest part of encoding) untouched. It is extremely fast compared to re-encoding because the bulk of the work is done. Nero has a very similar product, but it doesn't work on CSS-encrypted discs. In neither case are frames dropped--in fact, because they maintain the motion vector information, every frame is necessarily maintained in the output. These are considered transcoders.
Nero also has an AVI to MPEG encoder you can use. This one might "drop" frames (or more accurately, there may not be a 1:1 correlation in frames between the two products) but it will still produce roughly 30fps NTSC output. This is a true encoder and will go through roughly the same steps as any other MPEG encoder (including CCE). The difference is that it's not really made for high-quality encodings. It's made for your average Joe to put his videos on DVDs.
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:4, Informative)
Actually Nero has the never version of the same program. Since it was so good, Nero apparently bought DVD Shring along with the author and released it as "Nero Recode". For apparent reasons they've dropped CSS decrypting support. Also the author stopped developing (or even distributing) the freeware version, but the website was still intact.
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:2)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:2)
Also, quality-wise, I think a lot of Slashdotters need to give Recode more credit.
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:2)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:3, Informative)
There's a basic version available [cinemacraft.com] priced much more affordably at US$ 58.00. Misses some of the more advanced features of the full version, but still quite good.
HC Encoder (Score:2)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:1)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:2)
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:1)
I have a CD that I label 'registered shareware' with a sharpie. It has hundreds of dollars worth o
Re:Cinema Craft Encoder (Score:1)
Multiple passes (Score:5, Informative)
1. Choose a quality encoder
2. Use a high quality mode (if it has one) usually this enables more MV searches
3. Use multiple passes if supported. This helps distribute the bandwidth where it is needed more.
Mencoder [part of mplayer] can encode DVDs using lavc that look [for the most part] just as good as the original on a CD. It'd be trivial to get near losslessness in the size of a DVD.
Tom
Re:Give this a try (Score:2)
Why would you do that? Running your practically uncompressed DV footage through a high-ratio playback compressor like DiVx, only to recompress with another playback compressor (MPEG-2) does not make any sense.
i guess google was down? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:i guess google was down? (Score:1)
Re:i guess google was down? (Score:2)
iMovie (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:iMovie (Score:3, Insightful)
Not iMovie -- Compressor is what you want. (Score:3, Insightful)
iMovie just outputs an edited DV file and chapter information; the heavy lifting is done in iDVD.
I haven't really followed the progress of iDVD very closely over the past few years. Once upon a time, the compressor that it used was pretty miserable: it was a CBR thing at a very high bitrate, which was great if you just wanted to put 60 minutes of DV footage onto a disc, but useless for anything else. If they've improved that at all, it might
Re:Not iMovie -- Compressor is what you want. (Score:2)
iMovie '05 added a better MPEG-2 encoder and the ability to write disk images. This was particularly useful, since it meant tha
Use another compression engine? Audio too big? (Score:5, Informative)
If you're still having problems, you might try reducing the resolution. DVD supports 704(720) or 352 vertical lines. Obviously quality suffers as you reduce resolution, but if you're having problems squeezing your content onto a DVD at 720 lines, you may just get an overall increase in quality this way.
Also, you don't talk much about your audio. Is it raw audio (which is really big and uses up lots of room on the disc that could be devoted to video)? You may have good results compressing this, as well.
I like http://www.doom9.net/ [doom9.net] for all things video/dvd/vcd. They have a number of guides which detail the various methods of compression and burning. It's pretty likely that you'll find the tips you need there.
Re:Use another compression engine? Audio too big? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Use another compression engine? Audio too big? (Score:2)
Audio is a big bit hog. PCM is 1536kbits/sec while AC3 can be down around 256kbits/sec. That could be the difference between 4000kbits/sec for your video stream and 5200kbits/sec for your video stream.
(I find that 4000kbits for full-D1 video is really pushing the lower limit of acceptable. Unless you have a super clean source
You need to author first (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You need to author first (Score:3, Informative)
I bought the Sony Vegas Movie Studio + DVD Architect bundle and have been very satisfied. I use Vegas Movie Studio to import from my DV Camera (a fairly inexpensive entry level JVC) and edit everything together. You then "Render" your final movie... and then fire up DVD Architect.
DVD Architect allows you to create all of the menus and add media to the disk (including moving menus, stills galleries (for jpegs), and easy Chapter menus). Then you just hit "b
Re:You need to author first (Score:2)
A somewhat related problem: (Score:2)
I can't seem to find a good answer with the typical google searches (too many false-positives by mentioning mpeg and mpeg2)
Re:A somewhat related problem: (Score:2)
GuiforDVDauthor [videohelp.com]. Free, simple. Can make menus or just autoplay.
I can't seem to find a good answer with the typical google searches
Start here [videohelp.com]. It has a a lot of links to other authoring tools [videohelp.com] if you don't like gfd.
Wrong URL (Score:4, Informative)
Dan East
This isn't piracy guys (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This isn't piracy guys (Score:1)
Re:This isn't piracy guys (Score:2)
If your audio/video synchronization is good, then you're having much more luck than you know. :) I've made a few DVDs out of content from a Sony DV camcorder. I use some Linux programs, Kino and Transcode, for editing and transcoding. The a/v synch gets so bad that I have to chop up the projects into 5-minute (or so) segments to keep it manageable. :/ I haven't done this in a co
iDVD (Score:2)
Womble MPEG (Score:2)
It imports AVI, uses a timeline editor with a really fast seek, and my favorite: it can do stream copy for portions you don't want edited. Then there's transitions and other bells and whistles. I use it for anything I can't do in VirtualDub/AviSynth or Nero Recode. It's also recommended in the doom9 forums, for what it's worth.
Re:Womble MPEG (Score:2)
Nero Recode's MPEG-4 AVC encoder is actually really good. It's got most of the profiles and options to turn everything off so crappy Quicktime can even play it.
I don't use it so much for MPEG-2, just when DVD Shrink doesn't work. And that's really to just remove previews and shrink menus, so I guess I don't know ho
File info (Score:4, Informative)
Re:File info (Score:1)
If you are looking for best encoder for the money, I'd say TMPGEnc 12j. Canopus is also a good choice if money isn't an issue.
Re:File info (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't mess with the frame rate. It won't get you anything, because an NTSC DVD will always be 29.97 Frames per second. As for your encoding troubles, somebody already mentioned TMPEGEnc, and ffmpeg. I like both of them.
Re:File info (Score:2)
NTSC DVDs are not always encoded at 29.97 FPS. They are sometimes encoded at 24fps or 23.976 fps. This kind of DVD is typically a digital conversion from film since movies have traditionaly been filmed at 24FPS. It's a lot harder to encode (and maintain quality) on a digitized version of a 24fps movie converted to 29.97 than it is to just do an inverse tecline (24->29.97) after decod
Re:File info (Score:2)
Still, you can telecine from any frame-rate, to any other frame-rate. NTSC DVD is still always 29.97fps.
Re:File info (Score:2)
Telecine is used *by an NTSC player* to convert to 29.97. Unless you're playing back on a PC, at which point it will actually play at 23.976 without performing a telecine conversion. A PAL player might choose instead to simply speed up playback by 4% to get the required 25fps there (although I don't think most do this, it is certainly a possibility). There are probably also digital projection units that will play back
Re:File info (Score:2)
It could be encoded at 14FPS if you include the proper soft-telecine flags for that. There's nothing special about 23.976fps. That was my point. The framerate (header) of soft-telecined material is still 29.97fps (though it only contains 23.976fps typically). A DVD can't handle 23.976fps video any better than it can handle 17fps.
Re:File info (Score:2)
I'll admit I've never seen one that does do it, but neither of those steps is particularly difficult, and it would be a better approach to take than the one my player seems to take (3:2 pulldown to take the framerate to 29.97 and then drop frames to get to 25).
Re:File info (Score:2)
IIRC, the DVD spec only allows for 23.97 -> 30 telecine. I could be wrong though...
Actually, this is exactly what they do do (depending if it's a PAL-region or an NTSC-region disc).
PAL DVDs are all 25 FPS on the disc. NTSC DVDs are either 23.97 FPS or 30 FPS on the disc, but play out at 30 FPS, regardless of the framerate of the encode (as you say, 24 FPS film is slowed down to 23.97 at encodin
Re:File info (Score:2)
Yes, that's encoding. We're talking about PAL DVD players, playing NTSC discs.
The telecine judder should be unnoticable in most situations, on decent TV sets, and is going away as PCs and HDTVs become popular.
The 4% speed-up, however, is
Re:File info (Score:2)
For NTSC discs, that should be Dolby AC3 at a minimum, as MP2 is an optional part of the spec that might not be supported on all players. For PAL players, AC3 is optional and MP2 is mandatory. Fucked up, but true.
Re:File info (Score:2)
Because of this, MP2 is considered pretty much mandatory by PAL-country replicators/distributors, although some from NTSC areas tend to ignore this in their PAL releases.
Re:File info (Score:2)
PCM audio is the culprit. (Score:2)
PCM is uncompressed audio, half your file size is probably the audio. Demultiplex the audio to a separate (.wav) file, encode it to even the highest quality AC3 or MP2 at 48000 sample rate; you'll save several gigs. PCM audio is used to make the AVI easier to edit and keep in synch, but you don't need that for playback.
Re:File info (Score:2)
There's your problem. You're using up a huge chunk of your space for uncompressed 2-channel PCM audio. Encode it to 192K AC3, and you'll have far more room for video. You can use MP2 if you want to avoid patent licensing, but you should know it's only standard for PAL DVD players, not NTSC ones (ridiculous, I know).
And though you haven't mentioned it, since you're encoding audio to PCM, I suspect you're encoding video to MPEG-1 as well
Re:File info (Score:2)
First, even if your program allows you to fill in an arbitrary number for frame rate, it is not a number, but a binary choice. You have the option for 25 in Europe, or 30 in America. Your TV cannot do anything but 30 FPS, so will have to double-display one frame per second if your source material claims to be 29. This is visible. Your movie should shorten to about 87 minutes. Sorry. (the same is done for movies on TV in Europe: They play on TV at 25 FPS instead of the 24 FPS in the theatre, shor
Re:File info (Score:2)
Not true. You can have 24fps and the player will use telecine (interlacing) to produce a smooth playback. This is the way it is done for most commercial DVDs.
Save big then compress (Score:2)
-Jim
http://jimstips.com/ [jimstips.com]
final cut + dvd studio (Score:1)
do as few encoding/decodings as possible and burn the disk slow. make sure your (total) bit rate is below the dvd spec for stand-alone players. at least that's what i figured out...
Re:final cut + dvd studio (Score:1)
1. Variable Bit Rate 2 Pass.
2. Set Bit Rate High I like 6.9 Mbps
3. Set Maximum Bit Rate to 8.0 Mbps or slightly higher ( If you go higher some DVD player will not playback).
4. Lastly use a better Camera next time. Some of the issue my be your Camera if it is 1 Chip.
Try to avoid programs the auto pick bit rate based on 2,4,6 hour. As far a Final Cut get it if you don't have it. The enti
Re:final cut + dvd studio (Score:2)
A refurb G5 can be less expensive, but doesn't have as many internal drive bays. Unless you're going to build an external RAID, I recommend lots of internal drive storage. In my experience, consumer-level single-PATA-drive Firewire 400 enclosures don't use all the available bandwi
read the Doom9 guides (Score:2)
Patience! (Score:2)
DivxtoDVD (Score:5, Informative)
Simple, free, one-click solution: DivxtoDVD [afterdawn.com]. Fast and easy, quite good results.
If you want to get into it more, you need Avisynth (to load the AVI, scale it, apply filters); a video encoder (I like HCenc), an audio encoder (like BeSweet), an authoring app (like GUifor DVDAuthor, finally a burning app (use Nero or whatever came with your burner).
These are all free Windows software, you can do it all in Linux, but it's not so user-friendly. Most Mac users tend to use commercial software.
Filtering (Score:1)
However, the problem probably is less the encoder than the source. DV is usually incredibly noisy, and thus very very difficult to encode. This can be helped a lot by good filtering. TMPGEnc includes some filtering options that may work for you, but if you're looking fo
Re:Filtering (Score:2)
The free version only encodes MPEG1; i.e. VCDs, not DVDs.
Re:Filtering (Score:1)
Re:Filtering (Score:2)
Re:Filtering (Score:2)
Re:Filtering (Score:2)
Max bitrates (Score:3, Informative)
Prosumer software for Mac OS (Score:2)
Premiere Pro 2.0 exports direct to DVD! (Score:2)
Because Premiere Pro 2.0 at least (and probably other versions too) exports direct to DVD if you want:
File - Export - To DVD
Pick your options and burn.
If you have Encore you can instead export from Premiere Pro using Adobe Media Encoder. Choose MPEG2-DVD format, pick your options again (VBR 2-Pass is best, max bitrate 7MB), export demuxed and then put the resulting
Re:Premiere Pro 2.0 exports direct to DVD! (Score:1)
tmpgenc might be what you need. (Score:1)
Considered a standalone DVD recorder? (Score:2)
Have you considered a standalone, entertainment-center-type DVD recorder? I think you can get one for pretty cheap with firewire in. So you would hook your firewire output to the DVD recorder (to avoid digital -> analog -> digital conversion losses), and just record to a blank disk.
A brief look online found the Panasonic DMR-ES15S for about $150. There are probably cheaper, and I
You want MPEG2 Variable Bitrate encoding (Score:2)
You'll definately want to use MPEG2 Variable Bitrate encoding. That's a two-pass encode, it takes its time, but the result is worth it. I managed to get more than two hours of lecture recordings on one 4.7 GB DVD, with perfectly fine quality. Your 1½ hour should fit well. Since you have 1/3 less playtime than I had, you could increase the average bitrate (or the audio bitrate) to maximize quality.
I used Ulead DVD authoring products - Movie Factory for simple stuff, DVD Workshop for complex. They b
avi? (Score:1)
Use a better encoder (Score:3, Informative)
Nero's, as well as those on most all-in-one DVD edit/encode/author software are crap. The one that comes with Premiere is actually very good, but I prefer CinemaCraft Encoder Basic [cinemacraft.com] available at Visible Light for a mere $58 [visiblelight.com]. (Understand that the full version retails for over $2500 and has been used on commercial DVDs for many years.) It's not only quite good, but it's very fast. And it will plug directly into Premiere so you don't have to save that 19 GB intermediate AVI (or go through the associated additional encode/decode cycle, which also degrades the quality).
After encoding, you must author your DVD. Adobe's Encore is good, but at $350, it's pretty expensive. I recommend DVD-Lab [mediachance.com], the standard version of which is only $99.
Both of these are available for trial download, so you don't have to take my word for it.
Note that for audio, you can use MP2 for PAL destinations, even for commercial DVDs, and CCEB will do this for you. But for NTSC destinations, MP2 is not required to be supported by the players. You'll need to obtain a DolbyDigital (AC3) encoder, which is a different story (or you can use PCM, but this would force you to use a lower bitrate on the video, which would degrade the quality, so I don't recommend it).
Xesdeeni
4 simple rules not to lose quality (Score:3, Informative)
1) Perform effects, fade in,fade out etc on non compressed source never overwriting it. E.g. use "edited.avi" as output file
2) Never upsample. E.g. don't convert to DivX, it is lossy, "final" format. Decide what media you will need and compress using regular TV specs, don't delete the source if you can. For example, if you want to output to NTSC/Progressive (which in case, camera is not HD), here is resolution specs. Anything lower loses quality, higher won't work.
648 x 486-->Standard NTSC ( http://www.strata.com/support/3dmanual/ch13/ch13_
3) Do not transcode. E.g. do not convert something to DivX (mpeg 4 variant) and re-convert it to Mpeg 2..
4) Always use "multi pass" encoding. Not only the result will be smaller, it will be better quality as the bandwidth is used wherever needed.
Your problem was, single layer DVD. As the output media lacks space , the program you used lowered quality to fit 4.7 gb media. You should use dual layer DVD or 2 DVDs (which seems like bad idea)
I am on Mac so I really forgot/don't watch Windows/Linux programs but there is one program I can blindly suggest: TGMpegEnc. I have even seen it used in purely professional production work on windows based studios. Don't let its "plain" look trick you. It is a very advanced solution which I heard "basic" version is free.
Adobe Premiere, Encore, and Canopus Procoder (Score:1)
Nero, while it works, is a HORRIBLE way to encode DVDs. There are many alternative solutions.
First, instead of exporting your project in Premiere as an AVI, try exporting it to DVD, or to an MPEG2 format. Adobe Encore is pretty user friendly for creating DVDs, with the menus and interaction and stuff, but it will also rerender your movie to fit your target media.
What I usually use is Canopus Procoder, and it has a Premiere plugin. In Premiere, export to Canopus, then choose
Nero 7 / NeroVision works very well (Score:1)
Plenty of good suggestions, one more thing (Score:2)
Some export utilities will allow you to export resolutions that are valid MPEG-2 but not compliant with the MPEG-2 subset used with DVDs. The end result is usually that PC-based players will play it fine, some standalones play it fine, some standalones will do weird things when playing it, and some standalones won't play it at all.
Correct frame rate? (Score:2)